Praise for Lucy Dillon
‘A beautifully written story about friendship, trust and love.
I adored it.’ Milly Johnson on One Small Act of Kindness
‘A book you’ll read into the wee hours, full of warmth, love
and bravery.’ Lucy Robinson on One Small Act of Kindness
‘Such a brilliant book. So satisfying and clever and deeply
moving. I’ll be passing it on to all my friends.’
Sophie Kinsella on A Hundred Pieces of Me
‘A thoughtful, romantic, bittersweet story’
Sunday Mirror on A Hundred Pieces of Me
‘A totally feelgood novel about the importance of living life
to the full’ Sun on A Hundred Pieces of Me
‘I can think of few lovelier “me” moments than the joy of
being curled up with a truly magical novel like this one.’
Fiona Walker on A Hundred Pieces of Me
‘Lucy Dillon’s voice is gentle and kind throughout . . .
perceptive and well handled.’
Red on The Secret of Happy Ever After
‘Witty, heart-warming and a very real tale of loss and
redemption’ Stylist on Walking Back to Happiness
‘I loved this book! Heartwarming, real and entertaining’
Katie Fforde on Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts
‘A charming, heartwarming, entertaining read’
Glamour on The Ballroom Class
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Also by Lucy Dillon
The Ballroom Class
Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts
Walking Back to Happiness
The Secret of Happy Ever After
A Hundred Pieces of Me
www.lucydillon.com
www.facebook.com/LucyDillonBooks
twitter.com/lucy_dillon
#onesmallact
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First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
1
Copyright © Lucy Dillon 2015
The right of Lucy Dillon to be identified as the Author of the
Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior
written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of
binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons,
living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Paperback ISBN 978 1 444 79602 5
Ebook ISBN 978 1 444 79603 2
Typeset in Plantin Light by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Hodder & Stoughton policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable
and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests.
The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform
to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.hodder.co.uk
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For Jan and James Wood,
the kindest and best neighbours anyone could
wish for. Especially if the anyone is a scatty,
key-losing writer.
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Chapter One
A
rthur stared up at Libby, his beady eyes conveying what
his elderly owners were too polite to say. Which was, ‘You
haven’t got us booked in, have you?’
On the other side of the Swan Hotel’s polished oak reception desk, Libby’s hand froze as she clicked through the
computer check-in system. He knows, she thought, staring
back at Arthur. He knows that we have no record of any reservation, that we currently have not one room in a fit state to
show to a guest and that I secretly don’t even think dogs should
be allowed in hotels, let alone on a bed.
The dachshund wagged his whippy tail slowly from side to
side and tilted his head as if to confirm she was right.
Particularly the bit about dogs on beds.
Libby blinked hard. It’s a sausage dog, she reminded herself.
Not a hotel inspector.
Although, as the hotel forums warned, you never knew . . .
‘Two nights, name of Harold,’ repeated Mrs Harold, shifting her handbag onto her other forearm. ‘Is there a problem?
We’ve been travelling since eight to get here.’
‘From Carlisle,’ explained Mr Harold. ‘Three changes and
a replacement bus service. I could do with a cup of tea, love.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Libby tore her gaze away from Arthur and
increased the warmth of her smile – the smile she hoped was

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Lucy Dillon
covering up her panic as the upstairs rooms flashed before her
mind’s eye. She’d launched Operation Deep Clean two hours
ago specifically because the hotel was empty, and now not one
of the rooms had a bed in the right place, let alone a spotlessly
smoothed set of pillows. She and Dawn, the cleaner, had
moved everything so they could tackle the carpets properly;
as Dawn pointed out, there was enough accumulated dog
hair under the beds to knit your own Crufts. Libby pushed
that thought away. ‘My husband and I only took over last
month,’ she explained. ‘We’re still finding our feet with the
booking system.’
Mr Harold coughed and awkwardly touched his saltand-pepper hair, confirming the sinking suspicion forming
in Libby’s mind since she’d sprinted downstairs to answer
the brass reception bell. ‘I don’t mean to . . . Is that something in your hair?’
Libby casually ran a hand through her blonde bob. Yup. It
was a cobweb. A massive one.
‘We’re in the thick of renovating,’ she explained, trying to
flick it discreetly off her fingers. Maybe if Dawn moved one
bed back and closed all the doors, they could get one room
ready . . . ‘Now then, where are we?’ She willed the screen to
stop messing her about. ‘You’re absolutely sure it was April the
twenty-fourth?’
‘Yes! I spoke at some length on the telephone to your receptionist. An older lady.’
An older lady. The penny dropped. ‘Oh. In that case . . .’
Libby reached under the desk for the battered reservations
book, angling it so the Harolds couldn’t see that Friday and
Saturday’s columns were untroubled by any bookings, whether
in pencil, on Post-its or any of the other haphazard note forms

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employed by her mother-in-law, Margaret, who had only
recently started writing down reservations at all.
‘Donald and I never wrote anything down,’ Margaret would
insist. ‘When it’s your hotel, you just know who’s coming.’
The problem was, though, thought Libby, scanning the
book in vain, this wasn’t Margaret’s hotel anymore. It was their
hotel: Libby’s, Jason’s and Margaret’s. And at the moment,
pretty much no one was coming.
The booking spreadsheet was just one of the ideas Jason
had introduced when he and Libby had moved into the hotel
to help Margaret after his father, Donald, had died very unexpectedly; however, like most of their efforts to make Margaret’s
life easier, she had taken it as a personal criticism. Jason’s
website suggestions hadn’t gone down well either (‘Your father
wasn’t at all convinced about the internet, Jason . . .’), nor had
their ideas about making some rooms dog-free or putting
croissants on the breakfast menu.
Libby’s heart broke on a daily basis for Margaret, who
seemed suddenly colourless and lost without jolly, sensible
Donald, whom she’d nagged and adored for thirty-five years,
but the Swan was in urgent need of attention. Both financially
and hygienically. In order to get the deep clean started without a hurt Margaret arguing that most guests didn’t share
their ‘paranoia about a dog hair or two’, Jason had had to take
his mother over to the big Waitrose for a leisurely morning’s
shopping, leaving Libby in charge of a hotel and a guerrilla
cleaning operation. Not to mention Margaret’s self-important
basset hound, Bob, who was safely shut in the office. Libby
wasn’t even going to think about what he might be getting up
to in there.
‘Does it matter? You can’t be full, surely?’ said Mr Harold,

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Lucy Dillon
looking around at the deserted reception. He made eye contact
with the moth-eaten stag’s head over the door to the lounge
and did a violent double take.
Libby sighed. If Margaret was putting her foot down about
the reservations book, it was nothing compared with her resistance to their plans to update the decor. Jason had grown up in
the Swan and didn’t mind the wall-to-wall thistlemania in the
public areas, and Libby had rather enjoyed its gloomy charm
when they visited a few times a year from London, but now
their remaining life savings were tied up in the shabby, stag-infested surroundings, it made her twitchy. She wished there
were some way she could persuade Margaret to let them get
on with the revamp they’d agreed when they’d sold up and
moved here for their own fresh start.
As it was, thanks to Margaret’s reluctance and their own
careful budgeting, she and Jason were doing it room by room,
by themselves, in the evenings. The bedrooms were more Laura
Ashley than Braveheart, and they’d spent the previous month
stripping the busy pink paper from room four, replacing it with
soothing dove-grey-painted walls and soft linens. Libby had
made mood boards for the luxurious boutique look they’d
decided the hotel needed if they were going to attract a
bigger-spending clientele. Or any spending clientele, come to
that. Jason and Libby’s savings had just about managed to
rescue Margaret from the clutches of the bank, but there wasn’t
a lot left over to rescue the hotel from the ravages of time.
Neither of them had done any DIY before – Jason had been
a stockbroker; Libby had been a television researcher – but
room four looked pretty good, considering. And she’d quite
enjoyed watching Jason wielding a sander, with his sleeves
rolled up and his fair hair dark with sweat. She’d always known

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One Small Act of Kindness
him in his City suit, or his off-duty weekend wear. And it gave
them time alone to talk. And to not talk, too, sometimes; just
working alongside each other, worn out in a good way, knowing every scrubbed board or sanded windowsill was a step
forward. Room four was the start of something precious,
Libby reminded herself. Proof that fresh starts sometimes
came disguised as horrible endings.
As if she could read Libby’s mind, Mrs Harold said, ‘The
lady we spoke to over the phone said she’d give us a specially
refurbished one. Room four? Arthur likes a firm bed for his
back, and I understand room four has a brand-new memory-foam mattress.’
‘Indeed it does! Room four is—’ Libby started to address
her reply to Mr Harold, then remembered that Arthur was, in
fact, the guest currently sniffing the laundry bag and . . . Oh
lovely. Cocking his tiny leg against it. ‘Room four, um, might
still need a day or two’s airing. Wet paint,’ she finished, as
convincingly as she could.
Arthur wagged his tail at her, but it cut no ice with Libby.
Dog hairs weren’t part of the plan, despite Margaret’s stubborn insistence that dog-friendly rooms had been their
trademark for years.
‘I can give you a lovely ground-floor room,’ she went on.
‘With a garden view on—’
‘What was that?’ Mr Harold put one finger in the air and
inclined his head towards the door.
‘Could have been our cleaner upstairs,’ said Libby. Dawn
was getting full value out of the rented carpet shampoo-er; the
water coming out was mesmerising them both with its tarry
blackness. ‘It’s just this morning. We won’t be disturbing you
later on.’

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Lucy Dillon
‘No, it was definitely something outside,’ he said. ‘Unless
I’m losing my hearing . . .’
‘I do sometimes wonder if you can hear a word I say,’
muttered Mrs Harold to herself.
Libby stopped and listened. Nothing, apart from the sound
of Dawn shampooing. And some ominous crunching from
inside the office. She remembered, too late, that she’d left the
nice biscuits in there. The ones that were supposed to be in the
lounge, for guests.
‘Did I just hear a car braking?’ said Mr Harold.
And then they all heard something: the undeniable sound of
a woman’s scream. A thin, falling yelp that cut through the air.
Libby’s throat tightened up. The hotel was on a bend, and
the turning for the car park wasn’t obvious, so cars slowing
down to find it were in danger of being hit by someone coming
the other way. The locals, of course, knew the road and so
wouldn’t – Margaret had assured her – need the safety mirror
Libby thought they ought to install as a matter of urgency.
‘I’d better go and see if everything’s all right. Would you like
to take a seat in the lounge while I check?’ She slipped out
from behind the front desk, grabbing her mobile as she went,
and crossed the reception to open the door to the lounge.
More tartan, more squashy sofas, but at least Dawn had
cleaned in there already today, and Libby had replaced the
pre-millennium Country Lifes with some more recent magazines. ‘If you and, er, Arthur would like to relax in here and
help yourself to tea and coffee, I won’t be a moment.’
The Harolds gave the stag’s head a nervous glance and
made their way underneath his glassy stare into the chintzy
comfort of the lounge.
* * *

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Outside, the bright sunlight shining through the trees made
Libby squint, but the scene on the main road was all too
clear.
A rough-and-ready farmer’s 4x4 and a red Mini had
stopped at strange angles, like toy cars abandoned by a bored
child: the Mini was pointing up towards the banked hedge,
and the Land Rover was in the middle of the road. There was
no sign of a driver in the Land Rover, but a man was getting
out of the Mini, looking shell-shocked.
It was his guilty expression that set a chill running across
Libby’s skin. Whatever awful thing had just happened was
clearly reflected on his face.
‘Are you all right?’ she called. ‘Do you need an ambulance?’
The man shook his head – he was about thirty, dark hair,
stubble; Libby thought she should try to remember details in
case she was later asked as a witness – and it was then that she
saw what he was staring at.
A pair of bare feet on the ground, partially hidden by the
Land Rover’s wheels. Libby spotted a flip-flop, a plain black
one, thrown across the other side of the road.
Her chest tightened. The feet were long and pale, a woman’s
feet, and the calves above them were speckled with tiny drops
of blood from fresh grazes.
‘I didn’t see her,’ the Mini driver was saying, rubbing his
face in disbelief. ‘The sun was in my eyes. She was in the
middle of the road . . .’
Libby hurried round the Land Rover, where the driver was
bent over a young woman’s body. An older man, she noted,
not wanting to look down. Grey hair, fifties, checked shirt and
cords. Probably a farmer. Good. He’d know what to do. He
wouldn’t be scared of blood. Libby was very squeamish.

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Lucy Dillon
Moving to the countryside hadn’t helped; there seemed to be
a kamikaze amount of roadkill around Longhampton.
Don’t be such a wuss, she told herself. Who else is going
to help?
‘Is she breathing?’ Libby inched nearer. ‘Is she . . . OK?’
The man winced. ‘She hit the Mini, only just missed me.
She went up his bonnet, then straight down onto the road.
Head took a fair knock. Don’t know if anything’s broken, but
she’s out for the count, poor lass.’
The woman was curled up as if she were napping, her dark
brown hair fanning out around her head and her denim skirt
riding up above her bare knees. Her toenails were painted a
bright candy pink, the only bold colour on her. Everything else
was plain: dark skirt, dark hair, long-sleeved black T-shirt, even
though it was a sunny day.
A startling thought flashed across Libby’s mind: she looks
just like Sarah. It was followed by a protective pang. She
knew it wasn’t her little sister – Sarah was in Hong Kong –
but something vulnerable about her face jolted her. The
creaminess of the skin, with the oak-brown freckles underneath. The long eyelashes, like a doll’s. She leaned forward,
forgetting her squeamishness, and put her fingers to the
woman’s pale throat.
The skin was cool under her fingertips, but she felt a pulse.
Libby let out a breath and realised her own heart was beating
hard, high in her chest.
‘It’s OK – there’s a pulse.’ She glanced up. ‘Have you called
the police? And an ambulance?’
‘I’ll do that now.’ The man stepped away and went back to
his car.
Libby couldn’t take her eyes off the woman, but her brain

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One Small Act of Kindness
was clicking into gear, throwing up practical information to
blot out the panic. She’d been on a one-day first-aid course for
the hotel (thankfully mostly theory, not gory practice) and
they’d covered the basics. Don’t move her, in case of spinal
injuries. Airway – clear. Good. There didn’t seem to be any
blood, though her grazed arm was at a funny angle, pale
against the rough grey tarmac, crossing the white line.
The white line. Libby stood up with a jerk, signalling to the
Mini driver.
‘We need to stop the traffic coming round the corner.You’ve
got warning triangles, haven’t you?’
He didn’t move, just carried on staring at the motionless
body, hypnotised by what had happened, so quickly, in the
middle of a perfectly normal morning. Libby would have
stared as well, but she was too aware of every second ticking
past for the woman on the ground. A lump the size of a duck
egg was rising on the woman’s pale temple, and the skin
around her eyes was bruised. Libby tried not to think about
what internal injuries there might be.
‘Warning triangles – get them out, quickly! Do you want
someone else to get hurt, crashing into your car?’ She glared at
him and he opened his mouth to speak, changed his mind and
hurried off.
Libby bent down to hide her own shock. ‘It’s fine,’ she
murmured, putting her hand on the woman’s shoulder. It had
been something the first-aid trainer had said: keep talking,
keep contact going, even if you think they can’t hear you.
‘Don’t worry – the ambulance is on its way. You’re going to be
fine. Everything’s going to be OK.’
Silence fell again, apart from the half-conversation of the
farmer on the phone to the police dispatcher, and birdsong in the

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Lucy Dillon
trees around them. Something this dramatic shouldn’t be
happening in such peaceful surroundings, thought Libby. In
London, there’d be sirens by now, passers-by crowding round,
opinions, people shoving in to help, or walk past. In Longhampton,
there were just a lot of birds. Possibly a distant sheep.
It made her feel very personally responsible.
‘Hang on,’ she murmured again, trying not to see her
younger sister in the woman’s face. ‘You’re going to be all
right. I’m not going to leave till you’re safely in that ambulance. I promise. I’m here.’
What else could she do? Libby looked at the woman’s bare
feet and took off her blue cashmere cardigan to cover them up.
This was a strange place for her to be, wearing flip-flops, she
thought. There was no footpath along this side of the road, and
the hotel was a bit of a hike out of town. Sometimes Libby saw
walkers strolling past with dogs; there was a bridle path
running through the grounds, one of the routes that made up
the Longhampton Apple Trail, but she obviously wasn’t on her
way there – Libby knew from walking Margaret’s dog that the
paths were still muddy enough to need wellies.
Was she heading for the hotel? Libby looked around for a
bag, but couldn’t see one. And there was definitely no booking
for a single woman in the hotel that night – although, if
Margaret had taken the booking . . .
She checked her watch. Nearly ten to one. Jason hadn’t
said what time he and Margaret would be coming back.
Margaret liked to spin out her trips to the big Waitrose: not
only did she much prefer the superior-quality produce, but it
gave her a chance to show off Jason, her successful financial-expert son, to the various committee friends of hers who
also liked to make a morning of their shopping. Libby didn’t

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want Margaret to be upset by the accident, but at the same
time she didn’t want the unsupervised Harolds to explore too
far into the hotel, not with the chaos upstairs. It had been a
stupid idea to do all the rooms at once, she thought, mentally
kicking herself. A beginner’s mistake – thinking like a homeowner, not a hotelier.
Libby sat back on her heels, ashamed of obsessing about
cleaning logistics when the unconscious stranger might be
seriously injured.
‘It’s fine,’ she whispered, hoping the woman would hear her
voice and know someone was trying to help her. ‘It’s fine. Not
going to leave you.’
She hummed tunelessly, as much to calm her own rising
panic, until she heard footsteps approaching. Libby’s head
bounced up, hoping for a reassuring figure in uniform or at
least the farmer returning with an update. Instead, she saw
Jason’s broad frame striding towards them and relief swept
through her like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.
Jason looked concerned but not worried – worrying wasn’t
his style. But as he got closer, he frowned and ran a hand
through his blond hair – farmer’s-boy thatch, as Libby used to
tease him when they’d first met. It never looked quite right
above his pinstripe suit, unruly and thick. Now, in his checked
shirt and jeans, it looked fine. He’d fitted back in here as if he’d
never left.
‘Has there been a shunt? I saw the triangles up just before
the turning to the car park, so we left the car and—’ His eyes
widened as he registered the woman on the ground. ‘Christ!
What’s happened? Are you all right, babe?’
‘No.’ Libby rose to her feet, and wobbled. She felt lightheaded. ‘I mean, I’m fine, but I don’t think she is.’

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‘Hey, come here. You’re white as a sheet.’ Jason hugged
her to his chest, dropping reassuring kisses onto the top of
her head while he rubbed her back, and Libby felt her
shoulders relax. His touch was comforting; she fitted into
him perfectly, the top of her head level with his chin. Thank
God Jason’s here, she thought, and realised how many ways
she meant it.
Then, just as she was about to ask if Margaret had gone
straight in to the hotel, Libby saw her mother-in-law carrying
two bags of shopping. For a moment she looked like the old
Margaret – fussy, filling her clothes exactly, bustling somewhere – but the smile that had started on her round face
slipped away as she took in the scene in front of her. In an
instant she looked older, nearer seventy than sixty. She put the
bags down and covered her mouth; her eyes, an unusual pale
blue like Jason’s, filled with horror.
‘Oh my goodness.’ It came out like a wail. ‘What’s happened?’
Libby wished she hadn’t had to see this. It was only six
months since Donald had collapsed in reception, then died
from a massive heart attack before the ambulance arrived.
Margaret had been alone. Overnight her confidence had
vanished, leaving a twitchiness that could easily turn to frightened tears. Libby broke free from Jason’s arms and took a step
towards Margaret, blocking her view.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see it – I just came out and found
those two cars and this lady on the ground. Don’t worry –
we’ve called an ambulance and the police are coming.’ Libby
glanced down as she spoke; it felt odd talking over the woman’s
body as if she weren’t there. ‘She’s going to be absolutely fine,’
she added, in case the woman could hear.
‘Sounds like you’ve done everything you can.’ Jason hovered

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between his wife and his mother, unsure who he should be
comforting first.
Libby gave him a nudge towards Margaret and muttered,
‘Take her inside. There’s a couple waiting in the lounge – can
you deal with them? They’re called Harold, and they say
they’re booked in for the weekend, but there’s no record on
the computer.’
Jason looked exasperated, but Libby shook her head. ‘It
doesn’t matter. Don’t make a big deal about it, but we need to
put them somewhere. See if Dawn’s finished one of the rooms.
Or, we hadn’t started the carpet in room seven – try that.’
‘Is there something we can do?’ Margaret called. Her voice
was brave but plaintive.
‘No, everything’s on its way, Margaret. You go inside.’ She
glanced at Jason. ‘Hurry up before your mother checks them
in to room four. They’ve got a dog.’
His eyes rounded at the mention of room four. ‘Say no
more.’ Jason squeezed her shoulder. ‘But are you sure you
don’t want me to stay till the police get here? You’ve done
your bit.’
Libby half wanted to let him, but she felt a strange reluctance to leave the woman. ‘No, it’s fine. I said I’d stay with her
and I will.’
‘What’s she called?’
‘Oh. I don’t know.’
‘Where’s her handbag?’
They both looked around; there wasn’t one in sight.
‘I’ll check the hedges,’ said Jason, but Libby waved him
away.
‘I’ll do that once the police arrive. You sort the guests out.
And make sure your mother hasn’t let Bob into the lounge

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again. I spent all morning hoovering that sofa. He should be
bald, the amount of hair that dog leaves behind him.’
Jason opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment, in the
distance, Libby heard the sirens tearing through the air, and
the raw anguish on Margaret’s face washed away any lingering
worries about the bookings system.
The ambulance crew worked briskly around the injured
woman, and as they were getting a stretcher ready, a police car
arrived. Two officers began interviewing the drivers, marking
off the scene and radioing instructions ahead.
The controlled activity felt reassuring after the stillness
before. Libby walked up and down the road, looking for the
woman’s handbag, but couldn’t find anything. After that, she
wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. She wasn’t involved
and yet she didn’t want to leave until she knew what was
happening to the stranger. The paramedics had wrapped the
woman in a blanket and strapped an oxygen mask over her
pale face. She looked much smaller under the blanket.
‘And did you witness the accident, ma’am?’
Libby jumped. A young police constable was standing right
next to her. He had a local accent, with the stretchy vowels that
made Libby think of tractors and fields and cider orchards.
Jason’s accent, sharpened by years in London, had already
started to soften again, mainly thanks to the catching up he’d
been doing in the Bells with his old mates, none of whom had
ever managed to leave Longhampton for more than two years.
‘No, I heard a noise from inside the hotel.’ She gestured
towards it. ‘My name’s Libby Corcoran. We own the Swan.
When I got here, everything was just as you see it now.’
‘And you don’t know this lady?’

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‘No, I’ve never seen her before.’
‘Did you pick up her handbag?’
‘I didn’t see one. I’ve checked the hedges, but there doesn’t
seem to be anything. It might have gone through to the field.’
The policeman looked frustrated. ‘I was hoping you’d say
you’d picked one up. That’s going to make things trickier.
No ID.’
Libby was surprised. ‘None at all? No phone? Have you
looked under the cars?’
‘We’ve searched the scene – there’s nothing. And you’re
definitely saying you’ve never seen her before?’
‘Definitely,’ said Libby. ‘Why do you ask?’
He frowned. ‘Because the only thing the ambulance lads
found on her was your address, in her pocket – she’d written
it down.’
‘My address?’ The unexpected connection between them
startled her. Why would this stranger have her address? They
were miles away from Wandsworth.
‘Yes.’ The policeman seemed surprised by Libby’s reaction.
‘You did say you ran the hotel, didn’t you?’
‘Um, yes, of course, the hotel.’ What was she thinking? That
house wasn’t hers anymore, anyway. Someone else was wafting around her gorgeous kitchen now. Someone else soaking in
her roll-top bath. She shook her head. ‘Sorry – I’m still getting
used to the new job. We’ve only been here a couple of months.’
The policeman smiled politely. ‘Thought you didn’t sound
local, ma’am.’
‘If I had a fiver for everyone who’s said that—’ Libby began,
then stopped, because she was going to say, ‘I’d have enough
to pay some bills.’
But the tingle of connection was still there: this dark-haired,
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bare-legged stranger had written down the name of the hotel,
looked it up somewhere. She was coming to them. Another
two minutes and she’d have been walking through the door
and none of this would be a mystery. She was a stranger to
Libby, but she knew Libby’s name, Jason’s name. The hairs on
the back of Libby’s arms prickled up.
‘We don’t have anyone booked in for tonight,’ she said.
‘She might have been calling in to enquire about work. Have
you advertised for any staff recently? Cleaners? Cooks?’
‘No, we haven’t. We’re not taking on any new staff.’
Far from it. When Jason had gone over the books, it had
been touch and go as to whether they could afford to keep on
both part-time cleaners.
‘Maybe she was meeting someone at the hotel?’ The police
officer knitted his brows. ‘A friend? A boyfriend?’
‘Excuse me,’ joked Libby, ‘it’s not that kind of hotel,’ but
then realised when the policeman’s ears turned cerise that that
was a townie joke too far.
‘We don’t really get spur-of-the-moment guests, and we
don’t do lunch or dinner, so there aren’t many drop-ins,’ she
amended hastily. ‘I’ll certainly keep an eye on anyone arriving
looking for her.’
‘If you could call us, I’d appreciate it.’ He started to take her
contact details, and out of the corner of her eye, Libby saw the
stretcher being loaded into the back of the ambulance. The
woman was almost invisible under the blankets, apart from the
fall of brown hair that reminded Libby of her sister’s fringe,
always getting in her eyes, and she felt a tug of guilt: she’d
promised she’d stay with her.
‘Should I go with her? To the hospital?’ she asked. ‘Will she
be all right on her own?’
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One Small Act of Kindness
‘It’s kind of you to offer, but there isn’t much room in the
back of those ambulances, and they’ll want to get her straight
in for a CT scan.’ The policeman’s radio crackled and he
turned to answer it. ‘I’ve got your details – and if you find
anything else, give me a ring.’
‘OK.’ Libby watched the ambulance’s blue lights start up
again and she felt cold inside, thinking of the grazed legs, the
pink toenails. The flashes of colour on the pale skin. ‘I just
wish . . . there was something more I could do.’
‘You’ve done plenty just by staying with her and getting us
out as soon as you could’ – he checked his notes – ‘Mrs
Corcoran.’
‘Libby,’ she said. ‘It was nothing.What else are you supposed
to do?’ The other officer was looking at her now, standing next
to the surly Mini driver, who was holding a breathalyser and
trying not to cry.
‘Plenty don’t do anything, believe me. You’d be surprised.
Now, then. Get someone to make you a cup of sweet tea, eh?’
he added, patting her arm. ‘The shock will probably hit you
once you sit down. Don’t always sink in at first. But you’ve
done a good turn here today.’
Libby managed a smile. His kindliness, not the shock, was
making her tearful.
The ambulance siren wailed, making Libby jump as it
accelerated away. She watched until it vanished, then hugged
herself tightly.
‘We’ll be in touch if there are any . . . developments,’ said
the policeman, and with the dip of his head on the word ‘developments’, the reality of what had happened finally did hit
Libby, square in the chest, and a cold shiver ran through her
whole body.
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